Movie Review: Juno

It all started with a chair and continued with orange tic-tacs, blue slushees, a minivan, truncated gold shorts, horror flicks, a wealthy suburban couple, pie flavored condoms, and ended with a quick-witted, smart-ass pregnant girl who is just trying to figure out herself. This film begins and ends with Juno.

The story begins with a sixteen year old named Juno (Ellen Page) who finds out she is pregnant. The man involved is awkward, odd, and shy Paulie Bleaker (Micheal Cera). With strong support from her parents (J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney), Juno decides to find suitable parents for her unborn baby. By searching through of all things the Penny Saver, Juno finds the parents she is looking for in Vanessa and Mark (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman), a well-to-do suburban couple. Vanessa has been dedicating her life in preparing the perfect house for a new child while Mark seems to be a little hesitant about becoming a father. Mark and Juno develop an interesting relationship where they argue about music and horror films. The relationship becomes awkward and unbearable for either of the two to handle causing Mark to crack under the weight of becoming a father coming to the decision to divorce Vanessa. Juno's world is turned upside down and inside out causing her to have to learn about life on the run, which ultimately leads her to find out what true love really is.

Director Jason Reitman, coming off the success of his freshmen film, Thank You for Smoking, allows the characters to develop at their own pace and permits them to gel together as one cohesive unit. He doesn't push the comedy in this film, he allows the comedy to occur at its own pace. Ellen Page gives the performance of her life, providing wit and flawless acting that should grant her the Best Actress Oscar at this years Academy Awards. The supporting cast was terrific in this film; the surrounding characters were portrayed with actors or actresses with solid acting pedigrees, who greatly backed Ellen Page as the title character. When we first meet the adoptive couple, Vanessa comes off as awkward and high strung where as Mark was comfortable and easy-going. As the film goes on, the two characters interchange. Mark turns awkward almost creepy towards Juno where Vanessa becomes closer, more in touch resulting in the end result of divorce and Vanessa taking sole custody of the baby. Micheal Cera, coming off his comic hit (Superbad) is Paulie Bleaker, the father of the unborn child. His character in this film compares greatly to his character in Superbad, uncomfortable, unsure, and unusual.

All the credit of this film's success should go to Diablo Cody, the former stripper turned screenwriter. Her story is so real and educes charm, laughter, and feeling that hasn't been felt in a film all year. Ms. Cody proves that anyone and I mean anyone can make a difference in this world even if its only on film. Juno is this year's Little Miss Sunshine, an independent film to come out of no where to touch our hearts.